


Spark Joy

by heyjupiter



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after Logan's return to the new timeline, Kitty's attempt to clean her room with the KonMari method raises a lot of questions for him. While they sort through years' worth of old T-shirts, she's happy to answer his questions, as well as to ask a few of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spark Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to pocky-slash for beta-reading this, to everyone on Twitter who humored this concept, and to Marie Kondo for her life-changing magic.

It had been a week since Logan had returned from 1973, and he was still trying to get the hang of the new present. So when he walked past Kitty's room and saw her sitting on the floor gazing at a huge mound of clothing piled on her bed and floor, he wasn't sure if he should ask about it. Maybe in this world where mutants had never been rounded up into internment camps, it was normal for people to sleep on top of piles of clothing. But while he was paused in her doorway considering, she looked up at him with a sheepish expression.

"Hey, Logan."

"Uh… packing for a trip?" he guessed.

"I wish." 

He still looked confused, and she said, "Don't laugh, but do you remember that old book _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up_?"

As if he would laugh at the woman who'd saved all their lives a week ago (even if she didn't remember it). He just said, "Let's assume I don't."

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it doesn't seem like the kinda thing you would need. It was kind of a fad like ten years ago… I never got around to it at the time, but I found a copy of the book when I was looking for something else... anyway, it's basically--it's basically about how all your problems are because you have too much stuff, and so the authorsuggests going through all your things one by one and only keeping the things that spark joy, and getting rid of everything else."

"How do you know if it, uh, sparks joy?"

"That's what I'm doing right now. You're supposed to put all the items of one category together, in a pile, so you can see how much stuff you really have. And then you're supposed to touch the things and see how you feel when you touch them. And if it doesn't spark joy, then you thank it for its service and get rid of it."

"Uh huh," Logan said. He looked at the pile and thought of the Kitty from the other 2023, the one who didn't own much more than the clothes on her back. The one who _couldn't_ own much more than that, since she had to live on the run. 

"You wanna help?" she asked.

"How'm I supposed to know if this stuff sparks joy for _you_?" he asked, but he entered her room and sat at her desk chair.

"Just keep me on task. You're good at that."

"I don't think you've ever needed much help from me."

She shrugged. "Sometimes it's nice just knowing someone's there for you." She sorted through a pile of T-shirts. There was clearly a pile representing her college years--MIT, NYU, MIT Mutant League, MIT Hillel Some of them were alphabet soup: MIT CS, MIT LGBT, NYU CIMS. Since Kitty was a teacher at the school now, Logan had assumed she must have gone to college, but he was happy to see the evidence. And since she kept most of the MIT shirts, he assumed they must be happy memories for her. In the old timeline, most colleges had closed their doors to mutants by the time Kitty graduated high school. 

"So," she said, sorting through some more T-shirts, this pile mostly featuring cartoon characters he didn't recognize, "Everything okay with you, Logan?"

"Fine," he said, too quickly.

"Hmm. You've just seemed, I don't know, a little off this week."

"Just been a busy week, I guess." He still hadn't told anyone aside from Charles about where--and when--he'd been. Charles was confident that everyone else was better off not knowing, but Logan wasn't so sure. But he also knew that it wasn't the kind of information to be revealed lightly. 

"Yeah, guess so," Kitty said skeptically.

Logan redirected. "How about you? Uh, what problems are you hoping to solve by throwing out all your T-shirts?"

"Hey, I'm keeping some of them," she said, nodding at the pile. "Just… I dunno. It's kinda dumb, really."

"Kitty, you're one of the smartest people I know." He was sure that would be true in any timeline.

She sighed. "Well, I just… I know Bobby and Rogue went ring shopping last weekend, and, I mean, I'm happy for them! It's just… weird."

"Yeah," Logan said. "Weird." Not only was this conversation a bit out of his usual depth, but also, in the other timeline, Kitty and Bobby were a couple. He vaguely recalled that Rogue and Bobby had dated in high school, when the school still existed. He supposed they had seemed pretty touchy-feely this week, at least, as much as Rogue's mutation allowed them to be.

"I mean, it was a long time ago that Bobby and I were together, and it's not like _I_ want to marry Bobby, _obviously_ , but…"

"Kitty, you're _so young_ ," Logan said. "You'll find someone. If that's what you want to do."

She sighed and made a face at a frilly dress. "Can you believe I ever wore this?"

"I don't remember it," Logan said, truthfully.

She thrust it into a garbage bag and said, "I wore it to our winter formal, my senior year… with Bobby. I was so clueless."

Cautiously, Logan said, "Oh."

She shoved another dress in the bag and said, "I can't believe I still have all this stuff from high school. It's just been waiting here for me."

"It's not like high school was _that_ long ago for you, darlin'."

"Sometimes it feels like I'm still _in_ high school. It's so pathetic. I'm 33 and I'm back working at the same boarding school I went to as a kid. Who does that?"

"Xavier's isn't just any boarding school, Kitty." Logan hesitated--he knew the X-Men still existed in this reality, but from the sounds of it, they didn't usually have that much to do in this more peaceful timeline.

"No, I know, I know, and I always wanted to be an X-Man. But it's just… you know, when I talk to my friends from college, they're all like, astronauts and doctors, and… I teach high school. And the only people I see on a day to day basis are the same people I went to high school with, and my students." She held up a pair of hideous neon leggings and considered them for a moment before keeping them.

" _Those_ spark joy? Really?" Logan couldn't keep himself from asking.

She laughed. "I like to wear them in the Danger Room, just to see that look you're giving me right now."

"Oh."

She kept sorting, and Logan watched with fascination. On one hand, he was happy to see that this Kitty had grown up safe and sound. But on the other, it didn't seem to have made her very happy.

After a few moments of silence, she said, "When I was a kid, I didn't really get why you would run off all the time. But I think I do now."

"Yeah?"

"I mean, I just feel like I need a change of pace. Some time to myself. Maybe for awhile. Or time with other people, I dunno. I mean, am I just going to be single forever? I know it's not as hard to be a gay mutant anymore as it used to be, but the only girl in my age bracket around here is getting engaged to a guy."

Logan really should have gotten better notes from Charles. Was he supposed to already know that Kitty liked girls in this reality? Maybe she did in the other reality, too, and had just been with Bobby out of circumstance? War could push people together who would never work in peacetime. Logan knew that better than just about anybody. _Fuck it,_ Logan thought. He couldn't live like this--and it seemed like maybe Kitty couldn't either. 

"Kitty, listen, I gotta tell you something," he said.

"Yeah, I know, I know, I'm just a kid and everything will be fine," she said impatiently, thrusting a pair of roller skates in the garbage bag.

"No, not that," Logan said impatiently. "I mean, yes, everything will be fine. Probably?"

"I literally cannot believe you are the person I have chosen to talk to my problems about," Kitty said with a sigh.

"Kitty, look, let me just tell you this. I know it's going to sound crazy. But I think you have to hear it." He stood up and closed the door before telling her an abbreviated version of his old life, and hers, and how they'd worked together to change it. As he talked, she gradually stopped sorting clothes and just stared at him wide-eyed.

"That is the craziest thing I've ever heard," she said when he finally finished.

"I know how it sounds, but I swear it's true. Charles didn't want me to tell anyone, but--I just--I felt like you deserved to know. To know what _you_ did."

She shook her head and pointed at herself. "I didn't do that. Some other Kitty did that. I--I've never even--I can time travel?"

"Bullshit. You did that, so that you--so that all of us--could have a better life. So we could have this life."

"So it's my fault I'm stuck here?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all. And you're not stuck here."

"Right. Because I can time travel," Kitty said flatly.

"No, that's not what I mean--although, uh, actually maybe you should talk to Professor Xavier about that?" Logan sighed and picked up an Xavier's T-shirt off her pile. "I mean, this is a special school… but it's also just a school. It's just a job. You didn't sign a life-time contract. If you want to take some time off and do something else for awhile, you can do that."

She took the T-shirt back from him and carefully folded it. "Like a sabbatical."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want to call it."

"What is it you do whenever you leave here?"

Logan shrugged. "I dunno. Probably just drink." She laughed. He added, "You could do whatever you wanted, though. Any company--any school would be happy to have you."

"You're right," Kitty said. "Even just a summer vacation." She shook her head and stood up, hauling clothes back to her closet. "So _this_ is why you've been so weird lately."

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"I mean, I really thought you were going to actually kill someone in the Danger Room. Or yourself. I mean I know you can heal, but…"

"I guess I'd gotten used to the adamantium," Logan said, looking down at his hands. It felt so strange to train without it. His whole body moved differently.

"The _what_?"

"It's a kind of metal--"

"No, I know what adamantium is, but what do you mean you'd gotten used to it? That stuff is crazy expensive. What did you even do with it?"

"Oh. Well, uh, my skeleton used to be coated with it."

"Holy shit, what? Are you serious?" 

Logan shrugged. Kitty sputtered. "That's--how did you even do that?"

"I didn't--it was done to me."

"Oh, _Logan_ ," Kitty said. She hugged him. "That must have been--I can't even imagine."

"I don't really remember it. The process. I just always had it."

She shook her head. "I mean, in mutant history class we talked about how they used to do experiments on mutants in the 60s, but… wow. That's horrible. I can't believe I've been complaining about having to teach physics."

"Kitty, that's the point. We made this world where you _can_ complain about stuff like that because you don't have to spend your whole life fighting killer robots."

"Killer robots," she repeated. "Were you planning to tell anyone else about this, by the way?"

"I dunno. It's kinda heavy. Charles didn't think I should."

"We were all there, though? Bobby, Rogue, Jean, Scott, Hank, Ororo?"

Logan flinched. "Uh… not everybody… made it... to this point. In the other timeline."

"Oh. _Oh._ Is that why you've been staring at Jean so much?"

"Yeah, I guess. I haven't seen her in… in awhile."

"Does she know?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't talked to her, but… I don't know if she's seen my thoughts."

"You should probably talk to her. You've been a little creepy, to be honest."

Logan laughed. "Thanks, kid. I'll think about it." 

Kitty put her hands on her hips and surveyed her bedroom, now clear of the giant clothing pile. "So you don't remember... "

"Uh. From this timeline, I guess I don't remember anything since 1973? Charles told me some stuff, kind of a crash course. I've been trying to read up, but… it's a lot. He offered to just give me some new memories, but… I passed on that."

Kitty nodded. "Help me take these bags out to my car, and let's do your room next."

"My room?"

"Yeah. I need to take a break before I move on to the next phase of my stuff, anyway. We can look at all the stuff the other you has accumulated. I can probably explain some of it. And we can see if any of it sparks joy," Kitty said with a wry smile.

Logan thought about it. It wasn't the worst idea he'd ever heard, although he hadn't looked too deeply into his possessions here and he hoped he didn't have anything too disgusting tucked away. 

As if reading his thoughts, Kitty said, "I've lived in co-ed dorms for years, I'm sure you don't have anything I haven't seen before."

"Hopefully not," Logan muttered. "Okay, yeah, sure, let's… what's it called?"

"KonMari."

"Let's KonMari. Not like I had anything else planned today," Logan said, hefting two stuffed garbage bags. 

Once they got back to Logan's room, he went for the bookshelf. He had already looked through some of those, but he hadn't had time yet to read all the history books he'd collected. They didn't appear to be in any particular order.

"No," Kitty said. "There's an order to it. You're supposed to start with clothes."

"I don't really have that many clothes."

"Then it won't take that long." Kitty sat at Logan's desk chair. Her bearing reminded him of the other Kitty, the field leader at the end of the world. "Go on, put it all in a pile."

Logan complied. In the process, he found a bottle of good whiskey in the back of his closet. "This definitely sparks joy."

"It's not even noon, Logan."

"Luckily, you can time travel."

Kitty fixed him with a familiar glare, and he raised his hands in surrender and started looking at his clothes. It was a much smaller pile than Kitty's had been, but still bigger than he would have expected.

"Are you really keeping all those flannel shirts?"

"They look like something I'd wear."

 

"They look like something the Indigo Girls would wear." Logan looked at her blankly, and she said, "I'm not sure if they didn't have the Indigo Girls in your timeline or if you just weren't paying attention to them."

Logan wasn't sure either, but he said, "Well, they're warm, and they don't have any holes in them."

"That one does."

"Oh, I'm supposed to get rid of something because of one tiny hole?"

"Well, I guess not, if it sparks joy."

"There's really a whole book about this?" Logan suddenly felt suspicious. He was usually pretty good at telling when people were trying to pull one over on him, but he'd had a lot on his mind.

"There are three of them," Kitty said. "I just read the first one though." She seemed to be telling the grim truth.

"That's unbelievable."

"Well, a lot of it is specific details about how to fold things."

Logan shook his head. His clothing was pretty straightforward. He didn't have any T-shirts with mysterious cartoon characters or acronyms. Just plain white tank tops and gray shirts with the Xavier's logo. He studied a few of the shirts. "When did the school change its logo?"

Kitty peered at it. "I don't know. That one looks pretty old. The logo's been the same since I got here. Look how thin the fabric has worn."

"Hmm," Logan said. "I guess I could probably throw it away?" He placed it in his empty garbage bag. It was his first discarded item.

"You don't seem convinced."

"I think maybe none of my clothes _spark joy_. But I can't just go naked."

"Hmm. Well, maybe you need to go shopping."

Logan gave her a despairing look and she laughed. "Online shopping? Did they have that in your timeline?"

"Uh… yeah, they used to. Things really fell apart at the end there."

"The true sign of civilization's collapse. Well, now you can pick out as many flannel shirts online as you want and a drone will deliver them by the end of the day." Kitty picked up a shirt from the bottom of his pile. "Hey, we gave you this for Chrismukkah. The tags are still on it! You never even wore it."

Logan looked at the Toronto Maple Leafs shirt, which did, indeed, still have the tags on it. "I was saving it."

"Saving it for _what_?" Kitty asked with a laugh.

"Just, I dunno, saving it, so it wouldn't get ripped," Logan said. "I'm sure… I appreciated the gift."

"Do you even like the Maple Leafs?"

Logan shrugged. It was a little hard to remember caring about anything as trivial as hockey. 

"Well, I'm sure we can find some season highlights to watch, get you caught up on that," Kitty said, typing something in her phone.

In the end, Logan kept most of his clothes, even though he still wasn't convinced any of them sparked joy. 

"I'm not sure how helpful that was," Kitty admitted. "Your clothes don't have as much… personal flair… as mine."

"Yeah, I'm fine with that," Logan said. 

"Maybe we should skip ahead, to the photos and letters."

"Isn't it lunchtime yet?" 

"We can't eat until we find _something_ that sparks joy."

"I found the whiskey!" he protested, but under her glare, he looked around the room. He didn't have a lot in terms of personal possessions, but he put together an old framed photo of a group of students in front of the school, a silver flask, a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST TEACHER, and a sword. 

Kitty said, "I'm pretty sure all weapons are supposed to be stored in the Danger Room."

"Maybe it's a replica?" Logan unsheathed it. It looked pretty sharp.

Kitty laughed. "Maybe you're just a rebel."

"Well, I'm guessing most of the students don't go through my stuff. I don't see what the harm is." He looked at the sword. "This looks like an antique."

"I think you were in Japan during WWII. But you never talked about it much. Not to me, anyway."

He nodded. "Yeah, I was. I remember that." He paused. "I remember that," he repeated. He hadn't yet processed all the memories inside his head. But it made sense--in this timeline, he'd never been experimented on, and never lost those memories. He didn't care to dwell on that right now, so he said, "Everything before 1973 was the same."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"But this isn't from that. I didn't bring anything back from the war. Nothing like this, anyway." 

"Don't you have any medals from the war or anything like that? Er, the wars?"

"I've never been sentimental about that." He had earned some medals, he knew, but he hadn't the faintest idea where those had ended up. Some of them might be in museums at this point. Some other time, Logan was going to have to sort through the pile of memories that had reappeared in his head, but he really thought he had enough to deal with just sorting through recent history and fashions.

"What about this?" he asked, indicating the WORLD'S OKAYEST TEACHER mug.

"Jubilee gave you that, as a joke. Mr. Summers didn't like you using it in the cafeteria because it was a bad example, or something, so you used it every day for awhile. I haven't seen it lately… probably he stopped getting mad about it so you stopped using it."

Logan smiled. It was something of a relief that Scott Summer was still around for Logan to needle. He'd been surprised by how much he'd missed that. He carefully put the mug back on his shelf.

"Here, let's look at this," she said, handing him his glowing alarm clock globe.

"See? It _is_ lunchtime."

"No, I mean this," she said. She hit a button and instead of the time globe, the device showed him a holographic photo.

"Huh. I didn't know it did that."

She showed him how the controls worked, and he scrolled through a slideshow of various images throughout the years at the Xavier Institute. 

"The older ones weren't converted very well, huh?" Kitty asked, pointing at image of her and Rogue as teenagers. Their arms were linked and they both looked horrible. It look Logan a moment to recognize it as zombie face makeup. 

"When was that?"

She tapped a button and the display flashed _10/31/2004._

"Wow," Logan said. He had some memories similar to that, of teenage Kitty and Rogue and other kids getting to be kids. The pictures that floored him came later--college graduations, babies born, life continuing normally for all of Xavier's students instead of derailing into a hellish fearscape. 

"Oh, look, there's when we went to see _Hamilton_!" Kitty said, pointing at a group in front of a theater.

"What's that?"

"Oh my gosh, they don't have _Hamilton_ where you came from?"

" _When_ I came from. And I guess not?"

"It's so good, Logan, it's a Broadway musical about Alexander Hamilton. You cried at it."

"Really?" Logan asked. Again, Kitty didn't _sound_ like she was joking.

"I'll put the music from it on your phone later."

"Thanks?" Logan said skeptically. He continued on through the photos and paused on a picture of Kitty in a purple gown and cap standing next to him. He was wearing a suit and not smiling, but he recognized the look of pride on his face. The date was 5/31/2020. 

He turned to look at Kitty quizzically. "When did you graduate college? Wasn't there already a graduation photo in there?"

"Oh, that one's from my phD."

"Oh. Well, congratulations."

"Thanks," Kitty laughed. "You were there. Clearly."

"Well--"

"I know, I know," Kitty said. 

"Wow," Logan said, after scrolling through years of occasions he didn't remember. "That is a really nice clock."

"It was a gift to recognize twenty years at the Xavier Institute."

"Twenty?" Logan asked.

"I'm not totally sure how that was calculated. I think you had some time off in there," Kitty said. "Some of the group pictures on there were from the party we had for you." 

"Oh. That was… nice of you."

"You hated it," Kitty said bluntly. "There was good cake though. Afterwards those of us who were old enough took you to Harry's for a beer. You liked that more."

"That sounds about right, yeah. Speaking of beer, it's definitely lunchtime now," Logan said, pointing at the clock.

"Yeah. How about we go drop off my stuff at Goodwill and get lunch somewhere that has beer?"

"What about beer someplace that has lunch?"

"Deal," Kitty said. 

"Drinks are on me. Thanks for saving the world, Kitty."

"Any time, Logan. Actually, I hope I don't have to do that again, it sounded hard."

"Yeah, it was. I think once should cover it, though. Now you can fuck off to a beach in Brazil forever, if you want."

"That actually sounds terrible," Kitty said. "Maybe I'll just teach math for another twenty years."

"The good news is, you've got time to figure it out."

"I'll drink to that."

**Author's Note:**

> In our current timeline, Marie Kondo has written two books about tidying, _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up_ and _Spark Joy_. In my story I said she wrote three because I figure by 2023 she'll have thought of some more stuff to say.


End file.
